


Til the Clouds Clear

by voodoochild



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Childhood Friends, Failed Relationships, Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-13
Updated: 2012-06-13
Packaged: 2017-11-07 16:49:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tenzin considers new problems and old solutions. Post-ep to "And the Winner Is...", spoilers for everything up to and including that episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Til the Clouds Clear

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this fan art of Aang and tiny!Lin](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4xi3gO6uG1qfrrfso1_1280.png) by minuiko. It's so adorably perfect, and I couldn't get the image out of my head.

She'll never ask for it.

Lin Beifong is far too proud to _ask_ for anything, especially something so - well, she would call it frivolous. Tenzin doesn't really find flying a chore at all. Which is the problem, because Lin doesn't like to be beholden to anyone.

His father could always cheer Lin up by taking her flying. He would hold Lin's hand and smile and take off as fast as he could, just to hear her shriek in delight. Kya and Bumi and the other cousins would get their turns, but Lin was first. She could never go fast enough or high enough, egging Tenzin on in later years with a sly "Uncle Aang could do it".

It's been a long time, though. It's been ten years of marriage and children and responsibilities and a new Avatar, and he and Lin barely speak any longer. But Lin dove from an airship hundreds of feet in the air to save Korra, and that means something, even if they still couldn't stop Amon and the Equalists from destroying the pro-bending arena. 

He knows she hasn't forgiven herself for that.

When he lands at police headquarters (by glider, Oogi's asleep and Tenzin awakes him at his own peril), Lin's office is still brightly-lit. She's pacing the floor, armor half-on - she's ripped her gauntlets off and tossed them on the chair, her belt is undone and clanking against the plate mail every time she takes a step - and he's well aware that startling her is a terrible idea, so he clears his throat and steps into the office.

"Get out, Tenzin," she growls, bending her gauntlets back to her and shoving them up to her elbows. "I have work to do. I should go back to the arena and look for more evidence."

She's furious, keyed-up and itching for a fight that won't come. It's how she gets. He remembers her spending hours out on the practice field, hurling boulders at invisible opponents until she slumped over in exhaustion. 

He swaps the glider between his hands, needing something to do to keep from touching her. Not in any inappropriate manner, just a simple hand on her shoulder, a touch to her wrist, to remind her that whatever else they may have been, he still cares for her as a friend.

"It's long past midnight, Lin. The attack was hours ago."

"I should be there!"

The floor rumbles under her, echoing her frustration, and he unconsciously directs some of the cool night air from the window through the room. "You've done everything you can. Let your people handle the work for now and take some time to relax."

Her fists clench, and he readies himself to catch any bits of earth or metal she's decided to throw at him, but she just slumps over, bracing her hands on her desk. 

"They played us," Lin says, voice so low that he has to strain to hear her. "You and I both just walked right into their trap, and now look what's happened."

It's so very personal for her - the way it was, Tenzin remembers, for her mother - and he can't take seeing her beat herself up over something no one could have seen coming. There is nothing more she can do tonight, not after those hundred-foot dives into the arena after Korra, not after all traces of the Equalists have vanished. He crosses over to her quietly, but he knows she feels every movement. No one sneaks up on Lin Beifong, not even him.

"You saved Korra. You nearly had Amon. Next time, you'll be ready." Her slight flinch when his hand rests on hers breaks his heart a little, but she doesn't pull away. "Please, stop blaming yourself."

"And you don't?"

He knows what she's asking. "You know I do. But Lin, I didn't catch Korra from hundreds of feet in the air - you did. I didn't go flying off after the Equalists, either. If you failed . . . well, my failure was worse."

She doesn't answer, but neither does she pull away. It's good - it's easy, for once - to stand there in silence with her, not needing to explain or defend or challenge. Tenzin finds comfort in stillness, in silence, because if there is one thing his father has taught him, it is that he is never truly alone. In this silence, there is Lin's slow, easy breaths, the scuff of her boot against the floor, the flap of his cape in the wind.

"So how do we fix this mess, Tenzin?" Lin asks, staring across the desk at their joined hands. Honestly, he's just thankful she's speaking, instead of smashing the room to pieces or calling him "Princess". He loved Aunt Toph - he does not love her propensity for nicknames that her daughter inherited. "Have ourselves a nice council discussion?"

"Don't be petty, Lin," he says, but she's right; the Council will be next to useless in this situation. The rebuke is just reflexive, and he coughs. "I mean . . . I'm sorry."

She rolls her eyes, but there's a familiar wry smile across her lips. "Stop apologizing for being honest."

"We're being honest now?"

"You're the one-" Lin starts, but she stops herself, taking a breath. He's surprised, usually she doesn't worry about how her words are interpreted. "Can we just stop? I don't want to argue with you like this, I never did. That's why we split up."

She's simplifying, but it's been years: they should be over the arguing and the blaming and the sniping back and forth. 

Of course, neither of them were ever any good at letting go.

"Come flying with me," he says, letting the truth just come out for once. He flicks the glider open and holds his hand out to Lin. "Like old times."

He can see, in the narrowing of her green eyes, that she doesn't know what to say. The offer isn't one he's made in years, and he knows she's weighing her possible answers. If she turns him down, it would be a lie. If she gives him an excuse, it'll be transparent. If she accepts, it means she needs him, and Lin Beifong doesn't enjoy needing anyone. 

It's long, excruciating moments before Lin nods tightly, and takes his hand. He takes off slowly, bending a cushion of air under them. It's one of the first ways children are taught to airbend - to catch themselves and trust the air - and he knows she remembers his own halting attempts at it, his father allowing him the panic of the descent but catching him every time. 

He hears a soft laugh from Lin as she wraps her arms around him the way she used to, and if it isn't as romantic as it once was, it's just as reassuring. 

She still trusts him not to let her fall. Not that she couldn't catch herself with her cables, but the gesture means a lot.

He takes off out the window, feeling the wind gathering through his fingers. Air has never been intangible to him, like it was for his father. Dad would talk about freeing oneself to the air, learning its ebbs and flows and building your own momentum from it, but Tenzin never understood airbending until he figured out that air had a solidity, a weight and feel when he manipulated it. 

There were rules, of course, be the leaf and touch the sky and all the things he teaches Korra now, but when he airbends, it's the lessons he learned from Mother and Aunt Toph and Uncle Zuko that he remembers. Trust your element. Use everything you've got. Channel your calm. He is the sum of their parts, just as Lin is. She earthbends like no one else, because she has a firebender's will and an airbender's lightness and a waterbender's fluidity.

"Is that all you've got? Oogi could do that in his sleep." Lin remarks wryly.

His answer is a sudden cyclone, spiraling them up past the buildings of Republic City, and he can feel Lin laughing into his shoulder until they break through the night fog over Yue Bay.


End file.
